How long before my score improves?

[Anonymous]

My husband and I have been paying all of our bills on time and above the minimum for at least a year and in many cases two years now.  His scores are in the mid 500s and mine are in the 530s.  We've gotten a secured card which we keep below 35% and pay off every month.  He took out a small installment loan and paid it off so that reported good for four months.  My question is, how can we get into the mid 600s so we qualify for a decent mortgage?   Everything I've read says pay down debts and make payments on time.  We are at 10% debt to income ratio, but all of our credit cards got shut off a long time ago and even though we pay on them every month they don't really help.  We desperately need a nice home for our family.  We are in an odd situation where we own a home that we can't refinance, or sell for more than $20,000.  We recently got turned down for a rental.  It is so frustrating that we make good money, we're paying our bills and we desperately need a home, but we can't get a loan or even approved for a rental.  We also make too much money to do a bankruptcy.  I've known people who came out of a bk with 650.  What can we do to raise our credit to 650 in the next 6 months?

[Anonymous]

I guess if your doing all of that my first question would be why are your scores so far down?  Whats on your credit report thats holding you back?

Pull your tripple credit reports and let us know exactly whats on there in the way of derogotory's and late pays.  Maybe we can start to figure out just what's wrong.

Van

[Anonymous]

My husband hasTU 554, EXP 537, Equi. 556

CC-open 3 mos never late, $33 balance on $200 limit

CC1-listed twice, not been paid since '04

installment loan-4 months never late (it's paid off, but not showing $0 balance yet.)

Auto loan-open since 09/2004 never late

tool loan1-closed never late

tool loan2-closed never late

tool loan3-closed never late

installment loan 1-repo in 12/2005 (ATV)

installment loan 2-repo in 7/2005 (Truck)

CC for ATV-not paid since spring of '04

auto loan-paid off

CC2-no payments since '04

Collection-phone $385 (3 years old, but just showed up this summer)

Collection-installment acct. #2

Collection-CC1

Collection-CC2

Mine- TU 533, EX 514, EQ 530

CC-open 3 months never late $33 balance on $200 limit

CC1-was in collections, paid off in Aug.

CC2-transferred to collections

CC for ATV-closed: opened in 09/2003 high 9181 now 6528 2 30 days (most recent July '06)

CC1-repeat

CC3-no paid since 04/2006

CC4-just closed on me, high $1484 now $304, 3 30s (most recent 07/2006), 1 60, 1 90.

CC5-closed never late

CC6-not paid since 01/2006

Collection-just opened on CC2

student loans in deferrment

contract account-not paid since 10/2004

loan 1-closed paid

loan 2-closed paid.

med collection-$379 (just started paying it off, but not showing yet.)

med collection-$115 paid off this summer

A bunch more med collections in equif. and no others.  (just started paying, but not showing yet.)

[Anonymous]

Start PFDs for all the open(unpaid) collection accounts then GWs for the paid ones.  These are what are depressing your scores. Simulator says I'm getting hit for 90 points on 2 collections (total less than $200 - both recieving PFDs this week)

[Anonymous]

Are you using the regular FICO simulator in myfico or another one?

[Anonymous]

We subscribe to the Transunion credit checking service.   By the way, what's a PFD?

[Anonymous]

A PFD=Pay For Delete

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?board.id=generalcredit&message.id=2659

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

We subscribe to the Transunion credit checking service. By the way, what's a PFD?

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If you're looking at scores from TransUnion, your real scores may be quite different. Do your scores have the cheesy FICO gold seal on them? If not, you're looking at FAKO's. Looks like they just posted new stuff on the products screen here. You can do a one-time pull of all three FICO's here by using the new FICO® Credit Complete. It's pricey, though, almost $50, so you would want to Google FICO discount code or FICO promo code for savings. It will give you a code something like "FICO1234" which you would enter on the payment screen. They used to (as in yesterday!) have the same product, I think it was called FICO Deluxe, so they will probably honor any codes for that name. The FICO customer service people are good, so you might want to ask them. They're closed Sunday, though.

edit: my FAKO's are EQ 721 - TU 660 - EX 648. Look at my FICO's below --no correlation!

If you can only afford one or two FICO scores, go with EQ or TU, which have a simulator. You can sort of read between the lines on screens one and two, which give comparisons between your situation and ideals, and with what the sim says. FICO EX doesn't have this.

FICO scores aren't the be-all and end-all, but they're the ones that most lenders use. The problem with FAKO scores is that not only are they not very useful, the recommendations that come along with them can be downright dangerous to your real FICO's.

I agree with Lady_Scarlet, you need to get those collections cleaned up. Do a LOT of reading on these forums, and start with Credit Scoring 101. You can find the link at the top of the Understanding FICO Scoring board. Also look at Frequently Requested Threads. Good luck!

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 10-28-2007 09:55 AM

[Anonymous]

So what is the best way to deal with the baddies that are too high to do a PFD?  I'm assuming PFD's only work if you can pay off the whole account at once?    Also, if I call a creditor and offer to make payments, but they tell me the payments are too low, what should I do?

[fused]

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waiting4credit wrote:

So what is the best way to deal with the baddies that are too high to do a PFD?  I'm assuming PFD's only work if you can pay off the whole account at once?    Also, if I call a creditor and offer to make payments, but they tell me the payments are too low, what should I do?

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I would never offer to pay the full amount in exchange for a delete unless I have to. I would begin with an offer between 30-40% of the total balance. If they agree great, if you have to pay more and can afford to then do it. The goal is deletion! Rather paid or unpaid collections, FICO scoring punishes you equally.

Make sure the agreement is on the CAs letter in lucid, cojent English. Do not sent a penny until you are certain they will delete the account. No verbal agreements either afterall we are talking about CAs here. It might be best if you do receive a written agreement to delete to post it the forums for others view. GL